Matmos

Matmos is an experimental electronic music duo originally from San Francisco but now residing in Baltimore. M. C. (Martin) Schmidt and Drew Daniel are the core members, but they frequently include other artists on their records and in their performances, including notably J Lesser. Apart from releasing nine full-length studio albums and numerous collaborative works, Matmos is also well known for their collaboration with Icelandic singer and musician Björk, both on studio recordings and live tours. After being signed to Matador Records for nine years, Matmos signed with Thrill Jockey in 2012.[1] The name Matmos refers to the seething lake of evil slime beneath the city Sogo in the 1968 film Barbarella.

Matmos
M. C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel
at Pitchfork Music Festival 2006
Background information
OriginSan Francisco, U.S.
Genres
Years active1995–present
Labels
Associated acts
WebsiteOfficial Site
MembersM.C. Schmidt
Drew Daniel

Notable work

In 1998, Matmos remixed the Björk single Alarm Call. Subsequently, Matmos worked with Björk on her albums Vespertine (2001) and Medúlla (2004), as well as her Vespertine and Greatest Hits tours. In November 2004, Matmos spent 97 hours in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts as artists in residence, performing music with friends, musical guests and onlookers. The live album Work, Work, Work, essentially a "best of" collection of the session, was released as a free download from their website.

Matmos gained notoriety for their use of samples including "freshly cut hair" and "the amplified neural activity of crayfish" on their first album[2] and "recorded the snips, clicks, snaps, and squelches of various surgical procedures, then nipped and tucked them into seven remarkably accessible, melodic pieces of experimental techno" for their album A Chance to Cut Is a Chance to Cure.[3]

In 2011, Matmos participated in a programmed evening of events with the visual arts organisation Auto Italia South East. The event was produced in collaboration with record label Upset The Rhythm and included contributions from experimental electronic musicians Jon Wiese and Birds of Delay. Matmos have since collaborated with a large number of visual artists and arts organisations, including Cafe Oto and Metal.[4][5]

In 2015, Matmos appeared in the documentary Soundhunters directed by Beryl Koltz and broadcast on the Franco-German channel arte as well as on many channels abroad [6].

Personal lives

M. C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel are also a couple, as stated in an interview in BUTT Magazine.[7]

Schmidt formerly worked as a teacher in the New Genres Department at the San Francisco Art Institute.

Daniel successfully defended his dissertation on the literary cult of melancholy, directed by Janet Adelman at the University of California, Berkeley, and is currently an associate professor in the Department of English at Johns Hopkins University.[8] This brought the band to relocate their home base to Baltimore in August 2007. Daniel also has a personal dance music project, The Soft Pink Truth. He is a contributing writer to the online music magazine Pitchfork Media, and wrote an essay about the Throbbing Gristle album 20 Jazz Funk Greats for the Continuum Books series 33 1/3. Both Schmidt and Daniel appeared in the Sagan music film Unseen Forces by Ryan Junell.

Discography

Albums
Year Album details
1997 Matmos
  • Released: 1997
  • Label: Vague Terrain
1998 Quasi-Objects
  • Released: June 16, 1998
  • Label: Vague Terrain
1999 The West
  • Released: 1999
  • Label: Deluxe
2001 A Chance to Cut Is a Chance to Cure[9]
  • Released: March 13, 2001
  • Label: Matador
2003 The Civil War[10]
  • Released: September 23, 2003
  • Label: Matador
2006 The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast[9]
  • Released: May 9, 2006
  • Label: Matador
2008 Supreme Balloon
  • Released: May 6, 2008
  • Label: Matador
2010 Treasure State[11] (with So Percussion)
2013 The Marriage of True Minds[9]
2016 Ultimate Care II
2019 Plastic Anniversary[12]

EPs

Limited edition
  • Matmos Live with J Lesser (2002)
  • A Viable Alternative to Actual Sexual Contact, as Vague Terrain Recordings (2002, Piehead Records)
  • "A Paradise of Dainty Devices: interludes, micromedia & sound edits" (limited edition of 100, for their "Wet Hot EuroAmerican Summer Tour", 2007)
  • Polychords : Promo Single released on Matador
  • I Want Snowden/Sheremetyevo Breakdown Blues, split single with the Disco Yahtzee Empire (2013)[15][16]
gollark: How awful.
gollark: Prayer... project?
gollark: That would be mean, though.
gollark: How could they not?
gollark: Nope. Their entire system is broken. The security autoturrets on the datacentres fall back to maximum aggression mode if they can't communicate with the control servers, see.

References
  1. announcement on the official website (July 20, 2012)
  2. Cooper, Sean (2008). "Matmos", AllMusicGuide.com
  3. Phares, Heather (2008). "A Chance to Cut Is a Chance to Cure", AllMusicGuide.com.
  4. Budzinski, Nathan. "Matmos Live At Auto Italia - The Wire". The Wire Magazine - Adventures In Modern Music. Retrieved 18 August 2015.
  5. Davis, Nicola (16 June 2015). "Digital park delivers talking trees and a fishy monster in the pond". Retrieved 18 August 2015 – via www.theguardian.com.
  6. Soundhunters, retrieved 2019-07-17
  7. "BUTT • Matmos".
  8. "Drew Daniel". English, Johns Hopkins University.
  9. "Matmos Celebrate Their 25th Anniversary: An Interview with Drew Daniel". PopMatters. 2019-03-14. Retrieved 2019-03-15.
  10. "Music Review: Matmos - The Civil War". Tiny Mix Tapes. Retrieved 2019-03-15.
  11. "How Matmos and Sō Percussion compose with cacti". Public Radio International. Retrieved 2019-03-15.
  12. "Matmos Plastic Anniversary". exclaim.ca. Retrieved 2019-03-15.
  13. Records, Thrill Jockey (11 October 2012). "Matmos - Very Large Green Triangles" – via Vimeo.
  14. "Matmos's Ganzfeld EP: electronica meets ESP". Boing Boing. Retrieved 2019-03-15.
  15. Metason. "Matmos". ArtistInfo.
  16. "Matmos & The Disco Yahtzee Empire - I Want Snowden / Sheremetyevo Breakdown Blues". Discogs.

Interviews
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